Best friend's baby born 11 weeks early, any experience?

[Aimsmum]

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DS was bornten weeks early. It's good that he's breathing alone.

My milk didn't comein until three days after he was born, after being on a pump a couple of times a day, the hospital should have big electric milk pumps for your friend to use to encourage her milk to come, and for her to express it to feed her baby, I presume he's being tube fed?

They told me DS would be in until his due date, I think this is standard advice, in fact DS came home after three weeks, as soon as he was regulating his own temp and his sucking reflex had kicked in so he didn't need to be tube fed any more.

DS got dressed a few days after he was born, you can get prem clothes in most baby clothes shops, and the hospital should also have a supply you can use, mine did.

Is there any way she can stay in hospital with the baby?

It is really hard at first and scary, and hard because you don't get to do the normal tihngs you thought would happen when the baby was born.

The best tihng you can do is support her, help her get to the hospital daily to visit, those kinds of tihngs.

WRT the clothes, I don't know if each hospital differs, but when dd2 was in scbu, they provided all of the clothes.

A friend of mine had her Dd1 11 weeks early and she is now a happy and healthy 10 yr old

Lot's of expressing.
Mothercare do tiny baby clothes.
My friends son is coming home next week was due next week but was born two months ago. He will be coming home on oxygen.

Congrats to your friend.
I had twins 12 weeks early. They are now 5 weeks so still in NICU. The twins were quite a bit smaller (3lbs 5oz and 2lbs 11oz) but were able to have their first cuddle within 3 days.
Initially they look very frail but they go from strength to strength and this week the twins have been trying a bottle or two a day.
They went into clothes at around 2 weeks old, once they had their long lines removed.
This week, the bigger twin moved from his incubator to an open cot because he reached 4lbs and hopefully his sister will be joining him very soon.
The NICU will provide clothes for baby while it is in there so I'd tell your friend to save her money unless she is very keen on providing her own. www.peenyweeny.com has some beautiful things on it.
Good luck to your friend. Tell her to expect ups and downs. For every two steps forward there is often one step back.

Frequent expressing is key to building a good supply, but the hospital staff should have told her that. If the birth was rough she probably doesn't much feel like expressing regularly. It took me a good 10 days to have the energy or inclination to put my mind to expressing on any kind of schedule but I now express around 1 litre a day. I try and express three hourly and set my alarm for once through the night.
Does she have a hospital electric pump?

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My DD was born 9 weeks early in Dec and it's a horrible expreience so really feel for your friend. She is going to need all the support she can get.

I am so glad that I expressed for the nine weeks it took for babyrascal to start feeding properly. We are now 18 weeks down the line and she is doing well and gaining weight nicely.

From a practical point of view she really needs to keep her strength up. As her friend the best thing you can do is make her evening meals, lasagne, cottage pie, casseroles, stews etc so when she gets in at night she has a healthy meal ready to warm up rather than cooking from scratch. Taking sandwiches to the hospital is great to. It's essential that she keeps her strength up.

Re Expressing she needs to be expressing at least 8-10 times in 24hrs including at least once through the night - a real bind but essential for getting and maintaining a good supply. However if she misses a session or two it's better not to stress just express asap.

She should be double pumping (ie both breasts each time) with a hospital grade pump.

Having a picture of baby when she is expressing helps the milk flow or even better at the side of the incubator. The unit should provide screens for privacy.

Once she can hold baby skin to skin contact is really good at improving supply.

She needs to ask someone to show her how to do hand expressing. She can then stimulate her breasts manually to help the let down before using the pump.

Oats are good for increasing milk supply.

Neonatal nurses (unfortunately) are not always the best supporters of breastfeeding. I had a lot of help from the hospital Breast feeding co-ordinator and this proved invaluable advice and support.

To ensure that Breastfeeding is established well she shoudl avoid using bottles and dummies for at least 6-8 weeks after baby has been feeding from the breast. In the meantime when baby is well enough and string enough she can cup feed baby rather than using bottles which can interfer with breastfeeding.

She needs someone to support her with her decision to breastfeed as she will undoubtedly come across people (Dr's and nurses) who will try to force the issue of using formula.

Think that's it for now! Sending big hugs to your friend. The NICU expereince isn't something that I would wish on my worst enemy it is a rtuely draining experience BUT she will get through it.

NICU staff obviously differ round the country as ours in Poole have been truely fantastic.
The twins I gave birth to aren't mine (surrogate birth for infertile friends), but they have always allowed me in to see them at any time, and have allowed unlimited access to the biological parents also without anyone once being negative or judgemental about our circumstances.
Every nurse is really pro breast feeding and does their best to promote it as being best for tiny babies. They have even told my friend that it is possible for her to lactate should she want to. I take the expressed milk to the hospital daily and each time I take it in the nurses all say how wonderful it is and how great I am doing expressing so much (probably say that to everyone lol) but it really helps me persevere with it and they always make a point of saying how much the babies like it and how good it is for them too.
I can't fault any of our NICU nurses. They are all wonderful.

Rascal has said parctically everything....

But to re-iterate the most important points.

Double pumping will increase milk supply. With this I managed to get enough milk for 2 without a night express. No-one even suggested I should pump thru the night (but she should follow current recommendations). I exclusively expressed for 12wk.

Photo/clothes/sheets from baby will help stimulate letdown whilst expressing

Regarding the clothes - we never provided any. The NNU had them and they are really expensive to buy. We saved our money until we had to provide clothes at home. The hospital ones also tend to be adapted to take drips and things.

The will keep him naked for a few days for the following reasons:
He is probably in a humidified incubator to stop his paper thin skin from drying out. They won't dress him until they turn humidity off
They will be watching his chest as he breathes to make sure there is no sign of distress or tiring
He may well be on phototherapy for Jaundice. If he isn't is is likely to be within a couple of days. He will need to have his skin exposed for this.

I think they started dressing DTDs at about 10-14days....but they were 27weekers.

StarlightMcKenzie we haven't come across a single negative person throughout all of this.

All Drs, nurses, midwives, ultrasound staff, everyone has been so understanding. We had braced ourselves for having to argue our case for wanting more people than usual in for the scans and birth etc but it never happened.

The whole experience really was wonderful and I can't wait to do it again. I had anticipated feeling low after the birth and maybe even having having the odd pang of 'Oh, I wish they were mine' (I'd NEVER say that BTW, I just expected to feel it) but seeing the babies' mum and dad and their complete and utter joy and happiness has been fantastic and not even for a moment have I thought of the babies as being mine.

Just in case she is in the same situation as me, I wasn't "allowed" to use the bad boy pumps until I was getting about 1ml per breast via hand expressing and my milk came in as it gets lost in the bottle when you're only getting little bits.

Found hand expressing really tough to start with but with LOTS and LOTS of massage I started producing a decent amount of colostrum and I also got my DP to do it as he could get the angle right.

My DD - full term but poorly was just in nappy most of the time she was in the special care baby unit. They told me it was to take the pressure of regulating temperature off of them, as they want poorly/small babies bodies to be focussing on the important things like breathing and eating! Plus it is easier for them to access canulas, tubes etc.

Wow sarahtibs, you're amazing (only just read the thread - should so do that before posting). I would love to think about surrogacy when I am older and done with having my own family.

she could try warm flannels on her breasts as this can stimulate milk flow too

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Def not a good idea to do too much tomorrow but she won't listen - I didn't Although after spending the first night away from my baby - I was desperate to go home after almost a week in hopsital in the run up to Xmas - by the following morning wild horses couldn't keep me away !

Just be there for her and try and help her chill out as much as possible - easier said than done.

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